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Frequently Asked Questions

Clients

We have a limited admin support staff. Before emailing us, please ensure you have checked these questions. Only if you still can’t find an answer to your question, send an email to support@heatherwellbeing.com

About Heather and the Initiative
Questions about therapy
Miscellaneous

About Heather & The Initiative

Heather is a modern, compassionate and integrated wellbeing company that has therapy at its core. We are entirely independent, self-funded and purpose led. 

The concept for Heather was initially developed to address the often daunting, confusing and impersonal journey of searching for a therapist – replacing it with a reassuring, simple and tailored process. 

This would ultimately form Heather’s holistic approach to wellbeing, where clients are also supported by leading experts across all areas of their lives, such as sleep, nutrition, exercise and lifestyle in order to accelerate the process of creating meaningful, sustainable and tangible long-term change.

Heather Wellbeing is still committed to supporting private (non-NHS) people seeking support but has quickly pivoted and dedicated all immediate resources to focus on supporting NHS-Frontline Staff given the urgency and seriousness of the pandemic.

We were due to launch prior to the pandemic, however have since put all plans to launch on hold to focus on supporting the wellbeing of NHS frontline staff through this crisis. 

Rather than focussing on private/non-NHS clients, we are pouring our days, nights, money, time and efforts into doing what we can to help NHS front line staff for free. It’s entirely self-funded, we are fully independent and are building this initiative from the ground up.

During this time of uncertainty and strain, our NHS frontline medical staff are facing huge challenges – including maintaining their own wellbeing and mental health. We want to do all we can to support them through this turbulent time with the provision of free therapy to those who need it. 

The task our nurses and doctors face is daunting on every front, but it’s critical to their health, their patients’ lives and our country that their wellbeing is looked after. 

Nurses and doctors often have very few people to speak to – they don’t want to worry their friends and family, or burden their colleagues who are overwhelmed by their own emotions.

We see therapy as crucial support to help in this once in a lifetime pandemic and we are doing our best to help through the creation of this initiative. The idea for Heather Wellbeing is to help people improve their wellbeing. Helping the NHS aligns with this mission.

Moreover, we also hope to more generally help people see the importance of how critical strong mental health and wellbeing support is to those is difficult roles – NHS, police, army, firefighters. All of these services do an incredible job and sadly suffer disproportionately with PTSD to the rest of the population in the interest of serving the public. 

The work we are doing is extremely tiring, challenging, stressful and expensive but we believe it is more than worth it. We hope you join and support us in our mission.

No, we have not been commissioned by the NHS (or any public body or company) to provide this service. We are volunteering, providing and dedicating all our time, money and resources into creating this initiative for free. 

As a wellbeing company, we feel it is critically important to maintain and support the wellbeing of our NHS frontline staff and have dedicated all our immediate resources and efforts to helping in every way we can.  

No we do not receive any payment, nor do we receive any funding from any public body or company as part of this initiative. 

In fact, rather than focussing on private/non-NHS clients, we are pouring our days, nights, money, time and efforts into doing what we can to help NHS front line staff for free. It’s entirely self-funded and we are fully independent building this from the ground up.

No NHS staff are being charged by us, nor are we charging the NHS itself, and all therapists are kindly donating at least 6 hours of their time free. We are working tirelessly to start something new, and do some good for the nurses and doctors who are putting their health on the line to protect ours. 

Moreover, we also hope to more generally help people see the importance of how critical strong mental health and wellbeing support is to those difficult roles – NHS, police, army, firefighters. All of these services do an incredible job and sadly suffer disproportionately with PTSD to the rest of the population in the interest of serving the public. 

The work we are doing is extremely tiring, challenging, stressful and expensive but we believe it is more than worth it. The aim of Heather is to help people improve their mental health and wellbeing to enjoy their lives more. Helping the NHS aligns with this mission and we hope that you join us in this mission.

At the time of writing (April 2nd 2020), we had 105 registered therapists as part of the initiative who on average are offering to work with 3 to 4 clients each, for 6 hours per client. 

This equates to roughly, 21 hours donated time per therapist and at £80 per hour charged (our online therapy rate), this equates to £198,450 of therapy already available to provide to NHS staff.

At the time of writing, we have only been recruiting therapists actively for a few days. We aim to grow the number of therapists participating 1000 – a number we feel is more than achievable. 

1000 therapists, on averaging donating 21 hours at £80 an hour = £1,680,000 of therapy provided directly to hundreds of NHS frontline staff for free.

Yes. Therapy with all NHS frontline staff is being provided entirely free-of-charge by therapists that are volunteering their time to help – up-to 6 x 50-minute sessions per client for free. 

We recommend 6 sessions with a therapist to build meaning, context, consistency, and insight in the quality of therapy provided. After the 6 free sessions are completed it is up to the therapist how they wish to continue the relationship – they may continue for free, charge (if you agree) or refer you back to our site for more free therapy. We encourage you to discuss this with your therapist. 

No. If you continue to work with your therapist, we will not ever take any commission or fee from the money you pay to your therapist. We are delighted to have helped and found you someone to work with – that’s why we started this initiative!

We are here to support throughout the pandemic, and for a very long time to come after the COVID-10 crisis has subsided. 

We have strong growth plans, both online and in-person with purpose built spaces for therapy, events and classes. We were planning launch prior to the pandemic, however have since put all plans to launch on hold to focus on supporting the wellbeing of NHS frontline staff through this crisis. 

In the meantime, we will continue to develop our holistic approach to wellbeing, where clients will are supported by leading experts across all areas of their lives – including therapy, sleep, nutrition, exercise and lifestyle in order to accelerate the process of creating meaningful, sustainable and tangible long-term change.

Questions About Therapy

Counselling is an opportunity to talk about your thoughts and feelings together with any difficulties you are experiencing in a safe, confidential and non-judgemental environment with a trained and qualified professional.

You can either let us choose a therapist for you, or select your own from their profile based on their expertise, your preferences and availability. All of our therapists are qualified. 

Your counsellor will offer you six sessions.  It can take a couple of sessions for you and your counsellor to get to know each other.  However, if you are not happy with the counsellor you are paired with, then you can let us know and we will provide you a different counsellor to begin the six session again for free

The first 6 sessions are free of charge.  If you would like more than 6 sessions, you should speak with your counsellor about rates or ask Heather to allocate a new counsellor which we will provide for free.

You will be allocated 6 sessions.  The first session will be arranged through Heather.  The following sessions will be arranged directly with your counsellor thereafter.

No, you can have less if that suits you.

No problem. You can easily rearrange your session. Click the link to reschedule the session and the bottom of your email confirmation for your book session. 

Your therapist will be automatically notified of this – you don’t need to do anything more.

Our counsellors understand that you need to be flexible and arrange your sessions around your work schedule.  You can decide with your counsellor when you would like your sessions and how often.

Each counselling session lasts 50 minutes.

Yes. All sessions will be conducted over the Phone, Skype or WhatsApp. You can choose which you prefer. Your therapist will call you on your chosen method at your scheduled time.

You will complete a brief form on the Heather website.  This information will be received by us, and sent to the counsellor we have paired you with to help them do their job and no one else.

Any other information that you share with your counsellor is confidential between just yourself and your counsellor. The only exception to this is if a counsellor thinks yours or another person’s safety is severely jeopardised, if they are made aware of unlawful conduct or if their records are subpoenaed to court.  Usually a counsellor would discuss this with you first.

All therapists volunteering as part of this initiative are self-employed. The relationship of therapy is between yourself and the therapist not Heather. We are solely the matching agent. 

All therapists have their own operating terms and conditions within their practice and we strongly recommend you ask for these upon starting your session with them.

On the call it is important that you are in a private space where you feel comfortable speaking and will hopefully not be disturbed.

Video and telephone is safe, however we do not control the third party security of the platforms such as Skype, WhatsApp or your phone operator. Like all online activity, there is a risk of cyber hackers gaining access to personal information, or a third party gaining access to your email address.

You are welcome to cease working with your therapist at any point. 

If you do not feel confident or aligned with your therapist, please contact us on support@healtherwellbeing.com and we will endeavour to match you with a new therapist based on your preferences.

Miscellaneous

Unfortunately the situation has outpaced all of us. The government is already extremely busy, and we felt that a dedicated organisation just for NHS workers could quickly and effectively get help to people as soon as they need it.

We believe that at times of need people must do whatever they can to help. This is our way of helping and we are doing all we can to help as many people as possible. 

We strongly believe in the power quality therapy has to help people – alleviating strain, shrinking worries, releasing stress, providing value perspectives and enabling traumatic events to be processed in a healthy way to minimise the risk of PTSD. It is at times like these therapy and therapists are at their most valuable. 

Heather is only a start-up, but we see it as our duty to help in whatever we can, paid or not – the value of therapy is priceless to the many people going through difficult times.

Heather Wellbeing is built on trust and we trust NHS workers and the general public not to abuse this. 

On our application form, we ask clients ‘what is your working role to the NHS Frontline?’. We do not ask for you NHS registration number or NHS email address. We rely on people’s good nature not to abuse the system but accept there is a chance some people may try to do so. 

We believe the probability of this is very low as therapy is all about being open and honest, of which people cannot do if they are starting off the relationship with a lie. 

We’d love your support and there are lots of ways you can get involved. 

We are searching for volunteers to help us across social media, content production, therapist recruitment, client support, operations and tech support. If that’s you please email volunteers@heatherwellbeing.com

Please also consider contributing what you can to our crowdfunding campaign here: ttps://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/nhs-free-mental-health-support

To launch and maintain the service there are significant overheads, insurance premiums and platform fees – but if we can hit £25,000 in donations, we can grow the initiative to provide over £1,000,000 of therapy to NHS staff who are in desperate need of real support.  

The task our nurses and doctors face is daunting on every front, but it’s critical to their health, their patients’ lives and our country that their wellbeing is looked after.

We have the platform and therapists ready to help, but need your donations to make it happen. Please share far and wide and donate what you can! Every penny counts and never have NHS staff needed our support more. 

Please also help by sharing on social media and don’t forget to tag us in your posts too: 

All information we keep is outlined in our privacy policy: https://www.heatherwellbeing.com/privacy/

We only store the information required by law and provide our service. You are welcome to request the deletion of your date at any time. Please email support@heatherwellbeing.com to do so.  

All counsellors have an obligation to operate under a strict code of confidentiality for example, they will lock written notes in a filing cabinet or password protect any electronic notes. We recommend you ask your counsellor about their procedures.